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this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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Hm, this is interesting. I only have a passing understanding of control theory, but couldn't a positive feedback loop indeed be good when the output is always desirable in increased quantities? A positive feedback loop doesn't necessarily lead to instability, like you said. So maybe this is just me actually-ing your actually, lol.
As for "more optimal", oof, I say that a lot so maybe I'm biased. When I say that I'm thinking like a percentage. If optimal is X, then 80% of X is indeed more of the optimal amount than 20% of X. Yes, optimality is a point, but "more optimal" just seems like shorthand for "closer to optimal". Or maybe I should just start saying that?
This reminds me of a professor I had who hates when people say something is "growing exponentially", since he argued the exponent could be 1, or fractional, or negative. It's a technically correct distinction, but the thing is that people who use that term to describe something growing like x^2, are not even wrong that it's exponential. I feel like when it comes to this type of phrasing, it's fine not to deal with edge cases, because being specific actually makes what is said more confusing.
"I'm in a negative feedback loop with respect to my laziness which will soon stabilize with me continually going to the gym daily, which is closer to optimal than before. As a result, my energy levels are going to increase exponentially, where the value of the exponent is greater than 1!"
Hmm. Now that I say it that doesn't seem that crazy. Although I do still think some common "default settings" don't do any harm.
Those are good points! I can imagine positive feedback to be desirable in some situations and to some extent--a musician's amplifier needs to have some positive feedback to amplify the frequencies they care about, for instance, but likely also needs some negative to cancel out frequencies they don't want to amplify, either in the amplifier itself or in the sound booth. Or maybe for some chemical processes, where you always want to make more of product X, and you're just adjusting the positive feedback to keep the production of X at a certain range of acceptable rates. It all comes down to the math and the desired output! My areas of work are mainly related to areas where negative feedback is desired, but it's really very context-specific.
As for "more optimal," I think I picked up the habit of avoiding that phrase due to grad school being my life for so long. A lot of my cohort was very controls-focused in their research, and several of the controls profs would correct presenting/proposing/defending students if they used that phrase, so we got used to either avoiding the phrase entirely or jokingly pointing it out if a fellow student said it. But in my full-time job now, things are much more relaxed with respect to that sort of thing. Maybe in a few years, I won't hear those profs' "can you tell me what you mean by 'more optimal?'" didactic questions in my head when I encounter the phrase 🤣 And yeah, exponential growth is another good example! It's clear in the colloquial sense, but my engineer-brain still thinks "wait a minute..." when I hear it!